The last post posed the question: in the face of mounting pressure from internal and external ‘errors’, why do evangelicals (and why did I) cling so tightly to the notion that the Bible must be inerrant and authoritative?

For instance, one of the most challenging issues in my church community’s recent history has been the ability for women to assume leadership roles. I had for a while intuitively felt that the prohibition on women leaders was not (as some had suggested) a reflection on biological differences (most of my bosses have been women), but the biblical consensus seemed clear (esp. 1 Tim 2:12). The argument was therefore whether these verses were cultural or foundational; would Paul have taken the same line had he lived today? We concluded the former after much study and debate.

At no point, however, did anyone say, ‘Maybe Paul simply had a problem with women, and this is reflected in his stance. We should accept that the biblical record is imperfect and override it’. This would have been almost unthinkable. We could question the best interpretation of Scripture; we could not question the authority of the text, as originally given, to its original audience. Paul’s advice may not need to be followed in the 21st-century church but, as Scripture, it must have been authoritative in its original context.

Why was inerrancy a rigid line that must not be crossed? The primary objection was, to my mind, the ‘slippery slope’ argument: dismissing even one passage as flawed would lead inevitably to a loss of objectivity and would replace the Bible’s authority with that of the reader’s subjective tastes and opinions. In time, more and more texts would be disregarded and we would drift further into a mire of ‘feelings-oriented’ subjectivity. Therefore the teachings of the Bible need to be held in high authority.

Secondly, Christianity is (like the other Abrahamic faiths) a profoundly historical faith – one rooted in a specific history and based on historically-verifiable events. The Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, the Davidic dynasty, the Exile and most of all the life and death of Jesus are events that shape the Christian faith. There may not be extant evidence of the Ark or the Resurrection, but such evidence would, if found, support these events. If one could ever demonstrate with utter historical certainty that these events did not occur as described (e.g. that David was a fictional character or that Jesus had never been executed, Christianity would fall. The Da Vinci Code, for instance, is based on this premise. Therefore it is vital to assert that all events described by the Bible are true and correct. To do otherwise is, again, a slippery slope towards utter uncertainty about the milestones of the faith.

I’ll reflect on the first of these issues, and my emerging response, in my next post.